{ Please welcome Deborah from Teach Preschool who has come to my aid and offered this great activity for you all today so I could ( and did) have a mostly laptop free vacation with my family. If you aren’t familiar with Deborah’s blog Teach Preschool go now because it’s amazing. I wish I could be a fly on her classroom wall and just learn from her. }
Start by making sure you are using clean egg cartons. You might even run the egg cartons through the dishwasher if you have any doubts. Next, look around the house and gather up a few sets of small objects that will fit inside each egg cup…
I used small cars, buttons, pompoms, and soft blocks for my first set of egg carton math boxes and then set them out with the lids closed and just waited for my grandson to find them and want to open each of the cartons up to see what is inside…
As young children are given the opportunity to explore an open ended process such as egg carton math – they are being exposed to such mathematical concepts as sorting, matching, counting, subtracting, adding, comparing, and contrasting…
Perhaps the play looks like nothing more than putting something in and out of a box but if you look closely, you will see that the thinking wheels are turning and that is the first step towards genuine mathematical thinking…
To read more early learning tips from Deborah
Hop over to Teach Preschool!
Courtney says
There has been some research that shows that playing with objects that illicit one-to-one correspondence (objects as simple as balls and a muffin tin) helps children understand numerical equivalency and what the numbers mean. Even with no direct instruction, kids who just play with these objects learn so much about math! Great post!
Kate (My Vanilla Muse) says
Hello!
I just discovered your blog and I should say it’s great!!! WoW!!! So many ideas for family activity.
Definitely follow you (Bloglovin)
Kate
http://myvanillamuse.blogspot.kr/
Cori says
I use this activity and have put the numbers from 1 through 12 in the bottom of the egg cups to add to the activity and to give some number recognition for the children as well.
Sarah @ How Wee Learn says
Love these great games! I used egg carton games all the time in my Kindergarten classroom. It is amazing how much kids can learn just from the right set up. I would sometimes never give any direct instruction and just observe how the kids would use the games. It was very interesting to see them learn from each other, add ideas to their play, change their thinking, and add to their understanding.